A HUN-REN Társadalomtudományi Kutatóközpont (MTA Kiváló Kutatóhely) 

Szociológiai Intézete 

tisztelettel meghívja 159. Jour Fixe eseményére

 

The missing link - An empirical study of social scientific explanation and understanding

Előadó: Gárdos Judit (HUN-REN TK SZI)

Hozzászólók: Hans-Martin Gärtner (HUN-REN Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont); Janky Béla (Recens)

Időpont: 2025. június 26. csütörtök 13:00

Helyszín: Az eseményt hibrid formában tartjuk meg.

Személyesen: Szociológiai Intézet 1097 Budapest Tóth Kálmán utca 4.;  B.1.37

Online: Zoom link: 

HAMAROSAN

 

Absztrakt 

This article empirically examines the narrative strategies and the role of theories in sociological explanation and understanding, using examples from contemporary quantitative sociology of attitudes. Two journal articles and their narrative processes are examined in order to demonstrate how an empirical analysis of sociological explanation using critical close reading of scientific journal texts can be conducted. In efforts to achieve understanding, researchers may engage in narratively reframing their results, introducing entities that seem necessary for a convincing explanation and emphasizing even the smallest differences between groups. Causal reasoning often appears when researchers interpret their data, but the mechanisms or why an effect happens are not objects of the scientific inquiry itself, there is a missing link that would connect the explanations with the data. Explanation is achieved through implicit theories, interpretation and reframing of data and variables. Social scientific theories do not seem to play a crucial role in researchers’ strategies aiming at making social facts understandable. If hypotheses are presented, they are not mutually exclusive and rather intuitively and easily verifiable. The researchers heavily rely on former knowledge and assumptions about the social world when interpreting and explaining data. Their work often does not examine empirically how the genesis, content, or transformation of attitudes in time might be rendered understandable.